Artfactories

The association "Autresparts", set up in September 2000, is a think-tank bringing together cultural actors and researchers on the relationship between art, territory and society. It merged in November 2007 with the Artfactories association, an European resource center on brownfields transformed into artistic spaces.

PROGRAM "The New Territories of Arts” in Sao Paulo (Brazil) 26th of June - 6th of July 2004

In the context of the World Cultural Forum in Sao Paulo, Brazil, a part of the Artfactories team and the Ixkizit team, association in residency at Mains d’Œuvres, realise a prospecting travel on the state of contemporary creation in Brazil, on an interdisciplinary level. We wish to share with you the results and contacts taken during this trip, in view of encouraging futurcooperation projects with this country.

Nele Azevedo, brazilian visual artists, and the contemporary art organisation Linha Imaginaria coordinated a meeting with young artist, in dance and visual arts, from the city of Sao Paulo, with the presence of Artfactories and Ixkizit.
This meeting aimed at exchanging the each other realities in terms of creation, production, presentation... The main themes that were put forward during the meeting were: the artists status, the possibilities to initiate artistic exchanges with France and internationally, the difficulties to create an independent artistic organisation in Brazil, fundraising and cultural policy.

Linha imaginaria (Imaginary Line) is a project of cultural interchange that has been acting in the brazilian territory for 6 years. It has been proposing an instigate system of communication involving artists of several regions of the country and of other nations. The project is made of a dynamic of collective exhibitions with artists of several regions, mapping the country and giving resonance for thought on contemporary art. Nowadays, Linha imaginaria has 500 artists, building a widened of intellectual discussion and strategies of acting on the artcircuit, privileging also a direct contact with the public.
Coordinator : Sidney Philocreon et Monica Rubinho
e-mail : Linha Imaginária

Inês Sanguinetti presented during this workshop the experience of her organisation and project in Buenos Aires, Argentina : The Foundation Crear vale la pena
The Foundation Crear Vale la Pena is a non-governmental organisation, which realises since 1993 in Argentina, social integration programs that include education, art social organisation as a mean for social and individual promotion and development.
Bookmark : a south American network that gathers different organisations on the theme of art and social transformation.

Alvin Tan, Artistic Director of The Necessary Stage, a non-profit theatre company located in Singapore

1st of JUly : Meeting and Presentation of the space/project Casa das Caldeiras and the artists in residency
Avenida Francisco Matarazzo. 2000- Agua Branca

Casa das caldeiras and the « nucleo de convergencias artisticas » chose the context of the world cultural forum as an opportunity to present the space and its new artistic and cultural project. At this occasion, Artfactories was present to inscribe the space-project, still under construction, in an international dynamic. Mr Sérgio Mamberti, member of the Brazilian Ministry for the Arts in charge of cultural diversities, was also there.

This meeting gathered 70 people un a informal and sociable environment, and made it possible for other cultural actors and artists to get to know the space and its project. It’s important to underline that independent cultural spaces, in the sense that we define them, are very few in Brazil, were the jurisdictional status of cultural association is a very recent. Hoping that this kind of initiaitive, along with some other ones in Brazil, will have the possibility to multiply in order permit local artists to develop their creative projects in an independent way.

2nd of JULY: Towards a world network of artists network
Intervention on New Territories of Art at the World Cultural Forum, in the context of the French delegation, led by Claude Mollard, ex member of French Ministry for the Arts and initiator of various cultural institutions.

Joël Borges artistic director and choreographer of IXKIZIT, organisation for the promotion of contemporary creation, which acts on the concept of creation to develop international artistic collaborations and co-operations between cultural actors, artists and audiences.
This research has two frames of implementation: the creative work of the choreographer Joel Borges and the elaboration of programs for support and artistic exchanges towards young artists.
Contact : IXKIZIT

The caravan for artistic resistance in conflict zones enables exchanges represented by :

— Vladimir Cruells, visual artist, member of the collective TVEAC, coordinator of the Caravan for artistic resistance in conflict zones.

— Wesley Denilio (Delirioblack), rapper, representative of the group « Nattitude Mcs », in the favellas of Acari in Rio de Janeiro.

— Fayez AS ELSERSAWI, visual artist, member of the Canaan Institut and responsible for the ministry of culture in Gaza, Palestine.

The caravan for artistic resistance in conflict zones enables exchanges, knowleg transfer, artistic and social practices with populations situated in conflict zones or victims of coercion. The first experience of the caravan will make it possible to gather Palestinian, Brazilian and French successively on their respective territories and realise events in resonance with the local situations.
This first phase will be finalised in London in the context of the Social Forum.
Palestine: 15 September- 30 September
France: 1 October- 14 October
London: 14 October - 17 OctoberContact

2nd of JULY : Meeting with Nelson Brissac, director of Arte/Cidade, group for urban intervention in Sao Paulowww.artecidade.org.br

Arte/Cidade is a project of urban interventions realized in São Paulo, Brazil, since 1994. It seeks interventions that relate to the vast territory of megacities and the global reconfigurations of economy, power and art. It seeks to trigger our perception of situations that no longer reveal themselves solely to visual scrutiny, through interventions that consider the great scales of global and metropolitan restructuring processes.

At a moment when recent urban revitalization politics and established public art schemes are collapsing under the complexity and scale of the new situations, Arte/Cidade proposes to discuss new urban and artistic strategies of interventions in megacities. The project consists of a new approach toward situations for artistic and urban interventions: extensive urban planning research of the regions, the selection of sites and the development of intervention projects. Strategic alternatives for the city’s global restructuring, for decentralized urban politics based on the activation of these areas presenting, the structural complexity and socio-spatial dynamics that characterize the megalopolis.

2nd of JULY : Meeting at the space O Galpao, Sao Paulo

This space defines itself as “space of artistic education”, it hosts a circus school, theatre for children and dance. The recent residency Addriana Grechi with her project avec son projet Dança Vila (project that aims at sensitising an audience to contemporary dance through the development of a communication between artists/researchers and audience) will hopefully give a new energy to this space.

In fact, the space does not consist in a common project, it is today mostly a space which rents the studio for the companies that rehears at give classes. This situation should change with the residency of Addriana and the investment of the manager of the space Paulo Puterman.

Another spaces in Brazil that we were informed about but we did not visite :

Managed by the state of , they are of the number of 13 all over the state.

They are based in patrimonial spaces and are specifically destined to professionalisation and training, going from amateur to professional participants.
These spaces aim cultural integration through free workshops for artistic practices for interested and selected participants.
We met with the team of the Oficina Cultural Oswald de Andrade, which is the founding Oficina in the implementation of new methodologies within cultural education and training, which proposes an artistic and cultural program involving a great number of artists, technicians researchers as coordinators of the activities.

Located all over Sao Paulo, these huge spaces play the role of cultural centers for the artistic distribution of the city.

From these different contacts the idea to develop future cooperation projects is under construction: « Obras en Construçao » (Support program for young artists in dance and emergent contemporary forms in Brazil and South America) from 2006.
Contact : Ixkizit

Possibility of a South American Meeting in collaboration with the network “ art for social transformation” end 2005-2006

Year of Brazil in France « Brésil, Brésils » (March/December 2005).
For more information visit the website of the French Ambassy in Brazil and the wesite of AFAA.